


Running Out

by RobinPlaysTrumpet15



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Depression, Drug Withdrawal, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, I'm not sure where this came from, Lance is not a druggie, M/M, Medication, Possible future pairings - Freeform, Seizures, Sorry Not Sorry, Sort Of, Suicide Attempt, he runs out of his meds and doesn't tell anyone, tagged with relationships just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 21:26:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12093762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinPlaysTrumpet15/pseuds/RobinPlaysTrumpet15
Summary: Shiro notices a severe change in Lance's behavior. It leads to some dire consequences.





	Running Out

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, guys! So, yes, I know, this is my second Voltron work, and yes, I know, the first one isn't finished. Also, I seem to have a thing for Lance like... suffering... Oops. Anyway, I hope you like this. I have no idea where the idea from this came from. It was weird and suddenly there was this thing that I have literally just finished spending the better part of a day and a half writing.
> 
> Also, I'm saying upfront that there are not really any like... together together pairings in this story... yet. I talk in the end notes about the possibility of there being more to this series later, which is where any and all relationships will come in so... sorry if you were here for some specific relationshipy stuff...
> 
> Anyway, read on!

Lance realized early on that he would be fucked quite soon.

Not literally speaking, of course. (Not to say that he wouldn’t be okay with that on a couple of different levels.) He meant it more figuratively, specifically in regards to his medication.

The problem was that he wouldn’t have them forever. He had only been highly lucky that he grabbed the two boxes before sneaking out of his dorm with Hunk that last night on earth. He had to take both pills in the early morning hours, and it hadn’t been nearly time to take them yet, so he’d figured, you know, he’d take the boxes with him because he had no idea what time they would get back to the dorms.

Lance took his medication very seriously.

He had to, there was no other choice. Without it, Lance struggled to live every day, to go through a normal day of getting up and getting dressed and just eating when he needed to. These meds kept him capable of acting normal and not laying in bed, unable to get up while mentally screaming at himself that he was letting everyone down and disappointing everyone who said they cared about him.

But there was only a week’s worth of pills left, and one would run out before the other did.

*

Shiro would be lying if he said he hadn’t noticed the change in Lance’s behavior over the past couple of days. He was up and about before almost anyone (some days including Coran). He seemed more irritable than usual, especially in regards to Keith when the two went at their normal bickering. Shiro had even caught him zoning off in the middle of a conversation, dinner, or even training.

And it all just seemed to get worse by the day.

It had been about four days now since Shiro noticed Lance acting strange, but today took the cake.

Or, maybe Shiro shouldn’t have put it quite like that.

Lance’s newfound odd tendencies came to a peak one day when Lance got up far later than he ever had, even before he started acting funny, and then disappeared after lunch. He had been up for maybe three minutes, long enough to be told that he had missed breakfast and they would be heading out to training. Lance had agreed, the fakest ass smile plastered on his face. They had all headed down to the training deck, that morning’s regimen consisting of hand-to-hand combat.

They cycled through, each paladin having the chance to work with each of the others. Keith went first, first sparring with Shiro, then Pidge, Hunk, and finally Lance. Everything went alright until the red and blue paladins were set in their stances, waiting for the go ahead to begin.

And Shiro couldn’t shake the idea that Lance just looked wrong. His stance was off, his arms were not where they were supposed to be held. Lance’s normally dark skin seemed paler than normal, freckles standing out over the bridge of his nose, highlighted by a flush that spread over his cheeks and ears. His forehead was shiny with sweat and maybe it was just a trick of the light, but even from this distance, Lance seemed to be shaking.

But before Shiro could say anything or call off the fight, Allura was telling them to go at it. For a second, neither of them moved, then suddenly Lance was lunging forward, going straight for Keith’s head. Keith dodged, stepping to the side and letting Lance’s swing connect with air. Lance righted himself, getting his feet back under him and aiming for a kick in the older teen’s side. Keith grabbed his ankle, pushing the taller away so that Lance spun before toppling to the ground.

Keith gave him a second to land, watching to see if Lance would hit his head on the ground. When he didn’t, Keith lunged forward, pushing the blue paladin into the ground as gently as he could, pinning him and winning the sparring match.

“Good job, Keith!” Allura called through the intercom of the observation room.

Keith lifted himself off of Lance, reaching down and offering a hand for the teen to take. After a second, Lance accepted the help, allowing the black haired teen to pull him to his feet.

Shiro felt uneasy. Lance knew how to spar, especially against Keith. Lance had taught himself tirelessly for quite some time how exactly to fight each of the paladins. He may not be able to win against Shiro or Keith yet, but he knew how they fought. He knew what their tendencies were along with their strengths and weaknesses. Lance knew exactly what he was doing, so why did he act like he had no idea how to fight Keith?

“Lance, are you feeling alright?” Shiro interjected before the Altean princess could say anything on the subject. He knew that sometimes the woman could be harsher on the paladins than she meant to be, still a little foggy on all the needs and differences of humans.

Lance looked up at the window of the observation deck, picking Shiro out of the four figures standing there. From up here, Shiro couldn’t quite tell if the look in Lance’s eyes was unfocused and blurry or just far away and hard to see.

After a second of nothing, the others’ eyes darting between Lance and Shiro, Lance nodded, putting up a slightly wobbly thumbs up.

Shiro allowed himself just a moment of deliberation before accepting the weak answer. Maybe Lance was just a little out of it. Maybe he had a rough night, and waking up late and missing breakfast was messing with him. That would be fine. Maybe Lance would steady up here soon and there would be nothing to worry about.

Shiro nodded, his shoulders still tense, eyes still trained on the tall brunette.

“Hunk, you’re up.”

And the cycle continued.

Hunk fought Pidge, then Shiro, and then Lance. And again, Lance went down the fastest, after trying to go for Hunk’s middle and legs (both of which were not good ideas early on in a fight with the larger paladin). Shiro sent Pidge out after Hunk, sparring her first, then Lance. At this point, everyone had sort of figured out that Shiro was trying to save Lance for last, giving him as much recovery time as possible before going up to fight again.

When Lance was up, and the only person left to spar was Shiro, the older man took the time to watch the way he moved. By now, Lance looked nearly dead on his feet. Pidge had brought him down hard, nearly wrapping herself around Lance’s shoulders and throwing her body weight to the side. Lance had landed on his arm, his hip and elbow taking most of the impact. Shiro swore he could already see the bruises forming in his mind.

“Lance, do you want to take a breather?” Shiro asked, already settled into his defensive stance.

Lance was breathing hard, his pupils dilated, blue eyes definitely unfocused. There was a crease between his eyebrows that sort of denoted an all encompassing headache right between your temples.

Even if Lance did want to do this fight first, Shiro might call it off anyway. There was something seriously wrong with the teen.

Lance shook his head, still panting. He widened his stance, lowered his body, and brought his hands up in front of him, ready to fight. “No, I’ve got this.”

Shiro highly doubted that.

So the man stood up straight, dropping any pretense that he would be fighting the blue paladin.

“No, I don’t believe you do.”

Lance’s expression turned to a look of surprise as Shiro moved closer to him, grabbing hold of his biceps carefully and lifting him back up to stand normally.

“But, Shiro-”

“Lance, are you sure you’re feeling alright?” Shiro asked again, staring straight into Lance’s eyes, giving him no room to look away or really deny Shiro an answer. A straight answer.

“Yeah,” Lance said, completely unconvincingly. “I feel fine.”

Shiro narrowed his eyes at the blue eyed paladin. He couldn’t possibly be serious? How dumb did Lance think he was? He could so obviously tell that something was wrong, and he was positive that Lance knew he could too, so why was he lying?

Shiro dropped his head a little, sighing and letting go of Lance, taking a step out of his personal space.

“Fine,” Shiro said. “Hand-to-hand is done,” he called up at the observation deck. “Bring up the invisible maze for the next exercise.”

“But Shiro,” Allura protested. “You and Lance have not spared yet!”

“No,” Shiro said back, his eyes never leaving Lance’s. “And we won’t be. Lance will be first in the maze. Pidge, you’ll guide him.”

He left no room for arguments.

*

Two hours later, they broke for a bit and lunch. The clocks of earth time that Pidge had built (which were helping the five stay on top of things in general) said it was about one o’clock in the “afternoon”. Lance had only been out of his room for about three and a half hours now, coming out well past breakfast and actually delaying practice because of it.

They ate in silence, no one daring to mention how practice had gone. Most everyone had done well, with the exception of Lance. Granted, with the maze he did a little bit better, doing his best to listen to what Pidge said and executing the directions. Of course, it seemed to take every bit of his willpower to do so.

Lance ate rather quickly, only taking a few small bites of his green goo, and sipping at his hydration pouch before getting up from the table.

“Lance, where are you going?” Hunk asked.

“Uhh… the bathroom?” Lance snarked back, vague irritation in his voice “Geez, can’t a man go pee without an interrogation?”

Hunk waved him off without an answer.

Shiro waited until Lance was well down the hallway and out of earshot before speaking.

“Who’s worried about him?” Shiro said, not really phrasing it as a question at all. He raised his hand as the others did too.

“Did something happen to him?” Keith asked.

Pidge shrugged in response. “Maybe.”

“Maybe he’s just not feeling well. We may be in space, but we can still get sick, can’t we?” Hunk offered.

“Well, you can, but you just get motion sickness, Mr. Yellow Paladin, pilot of a giant, kind of sentient lion robot space ship thing,” Pidge replied.

Shiro had to try not to laugh at that.

“Seriously, guys. It’s been… what? A week since he started acting weird? This is serious.”

Keith nodded. “Maybe we can ask him again once he gets back.”

“Oh yes, because that went so well the other times Shiro asked him today.” Pidge folded her arms across her chest, leaning back in the chair and scowling at her plate.

“Pidge,” Shiro sighed.

The hazel haired girl sighed too, letting her chin rest on her chest. “Sorry.”

“We’ll try again, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll figure something else out,” Shiro said, looking around at his team and Allura and Coran who had stayed quiet during the whole conversation.

*

Lance never did come back.

Everyone came to the conclusion that the brunette had definitely lied to them, or had possibly told the truth and then just decided to avoid them.

“Who wants to go look for him?” Shiro asked. He was perfectly willing to do it himself, but then again, if someone else wanted to try and take the lead on this, he wouldn’t turn them down.

None of them volunteered. Fine. That was fine.

“Okay,” Shiro nearly sighed, pushing his chair back from the table and standing. “I’m going to go and see if I can get Lance to talk to me. Everyone else, you have fifteen more minutes and then I want you back to training. Listen to Allura and do as she says. Maybe work some more on the hand-to-hand. Hunk, you were struggling against Keith today, and Pidge, I’d like if you tried to become more comfortable working in closer quarters to your opponent. Got it?”

The three nodded.

Shiro gave a single nod before heading out of the room.

Now, where to look for Lance?

Shiro assumed that if Lance didn’t come back, he was probably hiding from them. Which meant that he was hiding in his room, or he pulled some stunt and found some random place in the castle to crawl into. (Which, granted, was totally unlike Lance, but he hadn’t really been acting like Lance recently anyway, so it was possible.)

But eventually, Shiro went to check the blue paladin’s room first, hoping that he would find Lance there, doing something or curled up in bed.

Shiro turned down the corridor where their rooms were, stopping in front of Lance’s door and knocking. There was no sound for a moment before Shiro knocked again, waiting for an answer.

At the third knock, the door whooshed open to reveal Lance, looking worse than he had before. Shiro studied his face hard for the second that he could before Lance was reacting to him.

“Shiro!” Lance cried.

“Lance, we need to talk-”

“You need to help me!”

Shiro paused. What?

“Help you with what?” Shiro asked, eyebrows furrowing, glancing up and down Lance, noting how his arms were held up to his chest.

And suddenly Lance was pulling his arms down and showing them to the black and white haired man. Blood was all over Lance’s arms, staining the black fabric of his sleeves, rolled up to his elbows.

“Oh my god-” Shiro nearly yelled. He grabbed Lance’s arms and all but pushed him back into the room, aiming for the bed. Lance fell onto the mattress when the backs of his knees hit the side of his bed, and Shiro grabbed a towel left forgotten at the foot and pressed it to the teen’s arms. He had to stop the bleeding. The cuts looked fairly deep, several littered close together near his wrists.

“Lance-” Shiro exclaimed. “What- what did you do?!”

“I- please, Shiro. I don’t want to die!”

Maybe Shiro was going to panic… because suddenly it felt like he might panic.

“I-I don’t want to die…” Lance nearly whined to himself.

But he couldn’t. Shiro could not panic right now.

“Shh,” Shiro shushed him. “You’re not going to die. You are not going to die, okay?”

Lance’s eyes squeezed shut as he let his head roll back and then forward on his neck, legs shuffling around. He squirmed in Shiro’s hold.

“Nope. Come, on, Lance,” Shiro said, trying not to pull on Lance’s arms to get his attention. “Lance, you can’t do this right now, okay? Come on, you gotta stay with me. Are you with me?”

It took Lance a second, but his eyes opened and they glanced warily around the room, looking off to his left. He nodded just a little bit, mumbling something that sounded like “I’m with you”.

Shiro would take it.

“Alright, come on. You know what you need? You need some legitimate medical attention. Come on.” Shiro all but hauled Lance to his feet. He stepped to his side, wrapping his human arm around Lance’s back and grasping at the towel around the brunette’s arms before guiding him out of the room.

The medical bay was… left, that’s right. Calm down, Shiro. You can do this… Lance needs you right now.

“Shiro… Shiro, I’m tired…” Lance slurred, head lolling back onto Shiro’s shoulder.

“I, I know, Lance. But we have to get you to the med bay before we can stop.”

Lance didn’t answer, and when Shiro glanced over, his eyes were shut. But his legs were still moving and still taking most of his weight, so that was a good sign.

It took only a minute or two and they were there. Shiro let Lance slump onto an exam table. Lance’s eyes slid open, blue irises staring groggily at him.

“Hi…” Lance mumbled.

“Hey, buddy. Can you sit up alright for me?” Shiro tried to keep his voice steady and calm. No need to get Lance riled up again if he was going to be pliant and work with him. Granted, this was probably a bad sign. “I need to go call Coran in here so he can help me, alright?”

Lance nodded, a soft smile playing across his lips. Hesitantly, Shiro let go of him, and when Lance didn’t fall, he turned towards the console in the middle of the room and nearly slammed down on the comm button.

“Coran! We need you in the med bay!”

Shiro turned in a circle, vaguely wondering where he would be able to find what he needed. Sure, they had used the med bay plenty of times, but usually, when someone needed medical attention, they were just stuck in one of the healing pods and watched over for a while. They had yet to get out gauze and bandages for anything.

Shiro settled on relying on the bloody towel until Coran got here and took over.

The man turned back to Lance, who was still sitting on the table, the smile gone from his face.

“Lance?” Shiro said, approaching and laying his hands on Lance’s covered arms.

The teen’s eyes turned up to meet his, the look in them shockingly clear.

“I’m sorry…” Lance said. He turned his eyes down and kind of glared at the red towel, the blood nearly imperceptible on the fabric.

“Lance, don’t worry about it. We’ll talk about it soon, but for now we’re just going to patch you up and make this bet-” Suddenly Lance was cutting Shiro off.

“No… you can’t make this better…”

Shiro was silent for only a split second before, “Why not?”

“I… I wanted to die, Shiro… I wanted to die,” Lance said quietly, letting Shiro pull the towel away to assess some of the damage. “I don’t even remember what happened, but I wanted this and suddenly I didn’t…”

“And now?”

Lance didn’t answer. Shiro figured that was just as well. He could guess at what was going on now, and he didn’t really want to stray down the train of thought.

“Shiro?!” Coran’s voice called at the redheaded man came running into the room.

“Coran,” Shiro said, turning from Lance to the older man.

“What’s wrong?” Coran came closer, catching sight of Lance’s wrists and nearly exclaiming in horror. “Lance! What happened, my boy?”

“I-it was… just an accident…” Lance tried to lie his way out, never once looking up from his arms that he held slightly towards Coran when the man reached for them.

Coran visibly hesitated. Shiro could see him deciding whether or not to accept the blatant lie.

In the end, he did. He went along with it, cleaning up the “accident” that Lance had gotten himself into.

*

“Well, Lance, you could go in a healing pod, but you should be fine. You lost a fair amount of blood, but you should be okay with some rest and plenty of fluids.” Coran said finally, taping off the end of a roll of gauze he had wrapped around Lance’s left wrist, his right exactly identical.

Lance nodded, eyes roaming over the pristine white of the bandages.

Coran walked away to put some supplies back where he got them from. Once the man’s back was turned to him, Lance lifted his eyes. Coran was bent down, putting various items away in a cabinet on the far side of the room.

He could also see Shiro and the rest of the team just outside the door, talking quietly. Most of them looked confused and sad, or in Keith’s case, vaguely angry and scared. Keith doesn’t give a damn about Lance though…

Except… except Lance knew that wasn’t true. Somewhere in him, he knew that Keith didn’t hate him and most of the reason they fought so much was because Lance instigated it. Because Lance was competitive and knew that Keith was better than him and Iverson just kept throwing it in his face. So yeah, Lance said some things that he shouldn’t have and then later kept it up because he didn’t know what else to do.

And before, it was just a sort of fun that he had with himself, messing with Keith whenever he could. But now… he had been off his meds for… how many days? Seven? Eight? He was off his meds and he really just… hated himself. He hated how he messed with Keith and he hated that he kept doing it and he hated that… he hated that he’d made Keith hate him the way he hated himself.

He doesn’t hate him.

He must though. He was standing out in the hallway with Shiro and the others looking all kinds of angry. Maybe Lance just hadn’t tried hard enough. Maybe Lance should have tried a different way instead of… he didn’t really know…

“Lance?”

Lance hadn’t even realized he had dropped his eyes again, staring at his hands, one clutched in the other. He brought his gaze back up, focusing on Shiro and the team standing in front of him.

“Lance, we need the truth. Right now.” Shiro said, still gentle, but firm. Lance nodded, eyes drifting back down to the toes of his shoes. “What is going on?”

“I… I ran out of my medication…” Lance mumbled, clear enough to understand.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Pidge interjected. “You’re on medication?”

Lance nodded. “I grabbed it the night we left because I take it around five in the morning, but I had no idea what time we would be back. I didn’t want to be late on it, so I brought it with me. It lasted up until uhm… a week ago? My Xanax ran out first, and I felt fine for about a day before I started feeling weird and shaking and anxious about everything again. Then I ran out of my Prozac a couple days later…”

“Xanax and Prozac?” Keith said, arms folded over his chest. “Why are you taking those?”

“The Xanax was more my anxiety. I was taking Prozac for my depression.” Lance offered, glancing up at all of them again.

The looks he saw there on his friends’ faces were sort of priceless. He could imagine what was going through their minds.

Lance? The over confident, flirtatious, cocky, annoyingly cheerful, upbeat, slightly sarcastic, snarky, sort of funny blue paladin? Has an anxiety disorder and depression? What?

Yeah… he got that. But… if you didn’t know, and had only ever met him after he’d started on his meds, you’d never really be able to tell. Especially because, before he started the Prozac, Lance had learned to hide what he was really feeling. He learned that he was not to talk about it, not to show it, not to act on it, nothing. Because what was he supposed to do? He didn’t really have a reason for being depressed or anxious. His parents loved him, his brothers and sisters were… you know… brothers and sisters… Lance didn’t really have anything to complain about.

So he didn’t.

His parents didn’t even know something was wrong until the wrong thing was said to Lance in just the right way at just the right time, that he had another panic attack, coupled with a depressive episode, both of which had started becoming more and more frequent.

He went to talk to a therapist, started seeing him regularly, and after a couple visits was diagnosed with chronic depression and general anxiety disorder. His therapist, Dr. Greeb, had hoped that putting him on Prozac would help the symptoms of both. After a month or two, there was a noticeable change in Lance’s mood, though he was still having panic attacks and worrying over small, insignificant things and then proceeding to worry that he was worrying too much. So, thus came the Xanax.

With the addition of the second medication, Lance was better, and more like he had been when he was younger, before starting middle and high school. After that, he had been given the go ahead to join the Garrison.

“You have anxiety and depression?” Keith asked quietly, his arms dropping to his sides.

Lance nearly laughed at himself, even though he really felt no inclination to laugh at all. “Yeah,” he nodded. “I dunno when it started… but I was diagnosed a few years ago and started the meds after that. Once I was a little bit more like my “old self”, my parents agreed to let me apply to the Garrison. So, at the beginning of every month, right before both of my meds run out, my mom or dad come and pick me up for a day, take me to my counselor and pick up my new prescriptions.”

He was picking at his nails now, absently moving to keep his hands busy. He needed something to do with them… 

“Wait… my mom was on Xanax…” Pidge said, looking off into space, but obviously thinking hard. “I read online what could happen if you suddenly stopped taking it for some reason.”

“And?” Shiro prompted.

“The list was… sleep disturbances, anxiety and or panic attacks, inability to concentrate, nausea, heart palpitations… um… irritability, trembling… muscle pain and stiffness… oh, and headaches,” Pidge listed off. “And those weren’t even the dangerous effects of withdrawal.”

Lance’s heart fell. If he thought hard about it, he had experienced all of those things to some extent.

“Not dangerous? Well what are the dangerous ones?” Keith demanded.

“Psychosis, hallucinations, and seizures.” Pidge looked warily at Lance. “You haven’t been having hallucinations, have you?”

Lance thought and… maybe he wouldn’t really be able to tell, but everything so far seemed really real. Except for the fact that he didn’t remember actually hurting himself or how he got here…

“Psychosis?” Shiro asked. “What does that mean?”

“A severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.” Yeah, that settled it. Pidge was definitely some walking dictionary or something.

“That sort of sounds like what he was acting like when I was trying to get him here,” Shiro said.

Lance looked at him. Maybe that would explain why he didn’t remember…

He suddenly yawned. He tried to play it off as no big deal, but Lance truly was tired. He was exhausted and fully ready for this conversation to be over. He wanted to sleep. Coran had said that he needed rest and lots of fluids, so maybe if he got a couple of hydrations pouches, downed one or two, and went to sleep, he would be fine when he woke up again.

“Lance, you good, man?” Hunk asked, looking like he might come to rest a hand on Lance’s shoulder.

Lance shrugged as Coran came over.

“He needs rest. He should head off to bed now,” Coran said. He left absolutely no room for argument.

Shiro nodded. “Coran’s right. There is just one more than I would like to talk about before we leave though…”

“What’s that, Shiro?” Allura asked, finally becoming part of the discussion, having stood silently the entire time, listening to everything Lance and the others said.

“Lance, without meaning to insult you or distrust you, I do not want you staying anywhere by yourself. I want someone with you. Just in case. Are you okay with that?” Shiro looked him in the eye when he asked, making it fairly clear that he wasn’t really asking Lance’s permission, and more just telling him he would have to be okay with this, no matter what.

Lance, trying his damndest to not be hurt by it, nodded.

“Okay,” Shiro nodded. “Do you still have those boxes for your medications?”

Lance nodded again.

“Good. Coran, if you could use those boxes with Hunk and Pidge and see if there is anything like them here in the castle, that would be great. Allura, I’d like to talk with you and see if there is anything in the castle records that could help us.” Shiro said decidedly.

But that left-

“Keith is going to stay with me while I sleep?” Lance asked almost indignantly. And then he was mentally kicking himself. He had no right to be that upset. He shouldn’t even be upset. He wasn’t upset. He liked Keith, he really did. Maybe more than he was supposed to, but he was already this deep in, what else could he do?

“Yes, and he is going to do a good job of it, and you are going to do a good job of sleeping, okay?” Again, no room for argument.

Lance opened his mouth to say something, though decided against it. He closed his mouth again, nodding in response. Shiro was team leader. Shiro cared about him. Shiro knew what he was doing. It would be okay. Keith was going to be fine as a watchdog while Lance slept.

*

Turns out, once Lance was lying down in his bed, and Keith was settled into the chair that usually went unused at his desk, he was no longer nearly as tired as he had been in the med bay. Just laying down, he felt better.

But the look in Keith’s eyes said that he didn’t want to talk. Or… at the very least that he wouldn’t talk, which he figured had more to do with Shiro ordering Lance to sleep than anything else.

But again, something there looked so angry, and Lance wouldn’t be able to stand it if it was because of him.

“Keith?” Lance whispered. The silence felt… not heavy, but definitely a little uncomfortable. Almost like he really shouldn’t talk…

“Lance, go to sleep,” Keith said back.

Lance frowned. Keith sounded tired, but the way he sort of frowned down at the desk sort of screamed that he was upset.

“You seem mad…” Lance just said simply. He didn’t want to argue with Keith. He never really did, so maybe he just wouldn’t.

Keith’s eyes slid over to him, something soft and vulnerable clouding the strange, near indigo black of his irises. “I’m not mad, Lance…”

“Liar,” Lance huffed, turning his head on the pillow, his cheek smushing against it slightly as he downright glared over at the wall.

He missed the way Keith’s eyes widened, missed how his mouth opened to say something, but closed when he thought better of it. He missed this look of loss and sorrow and hurt and sadness that settled over his features, knitting his eyebrows together and pulling the corners of his mouth downwards.

“Lance, I’m really not mad.”

“Then why do you look angry?” Lance questioned, turning back to face the older paladin.

“Because…” Keith started, seeming to search for words. Lance couldn’t tell if it was because he just didn’t know how to say what he was thinking, or if he was trying to think up a lie to tell him. “Because, you’re hurt. And no one asked how you got hurt except Shiro and Coran. And Shiro wouldn’t tell us, and Coran said it was an accident. And I really don’t believe that.”

Keith stood up from the chair and came to sit on the bed beside Lance. Lance moved over just slightly towards the wall, giving Keith a little more space. (Not that he needed it. Keith wasn’t large by any means.)

“Well, I-” Lance started.

“Please,” Keith all but pleaded gently. “Please don’t lie to me. I know what hurting yourself looks like. I do. And you don’t get cuts like that out of the blue just from an accident.”

Lance sort of wanted to disappear. It wasn’t like he didn’t expect them to know. He hadn’t even thought about keeping it a secret. When Coran had asked, he had panicked just a little bit, and he had blurted out the first thing he thought of. It had worked once on his younger brother before. He’d hoped it would work on Coran, too.

But he knew he was wrong.

And he knew that no one else would buy it either. Keith may not be the brightest, and his people sense left a lot to be desired, but he wasn’t stupid. And Lance… Lance knew next to nothing about Keith’s personal life. He had no idea what he went through as a child, at the Garrison, out in the desert. He just didn’t know…

“Lance!” Keith’s voice was still soft, still quiet, but there was an urgency, a squeak that broke through Lance’s thoughts.

“What?”

“You’re crying!”

Lance hadn’t even noticed. And suddenly, he was all too aware of the tracks of salty tears on his cheeks, all too aware of the crushing weight in his chest that left him wanting to gulp in air, but not hindering his breath.

“Keith…” Lance mumbled, and even he could hear the blatant fear in his voice.

For only a second, Keith didn’t move. For only a second, he looked like he might bolt, like he had no idea what to do, like he might call someone else to do this instead because, He. Just. Couldn’t.

But then he awkwardly crawled over Lance’s body and settled himself on the mattress nearly up against the wall. His arms encircled Lance’s body and held him close, the taller teen’s back to his chest. Keith said nothing, didn’t shush him gently, didn’t get him to talk about what he was feeling (or failing to feel), didn’t tell him it was going to be alright, or that they would figure it out. He just held Lance and let him cry.

And Lance knew that something here was different. He didn’t feel the panicked, breathy sobs and whines coming that he usually dealt with when he had one of these depressive attacks. He didn’t feel completely immobilized with the clenching in his chest.

He just felt sad. He felt scared. And that, that wasn’t normal.

Lance noticed in minutes that he was calming down. He didn’t necessarily feel better, but he didn’t feel worse either. Nor did he feel lonely like he usually did once he came down from these. If anything, the steady weight and pressure of Keith’s arms around him acted as a kind of safeguard.

And maybe none of this made any sense, but sense be damned, Keith had just fended off one of Lance’s mounting panic attacks before it could even start.

“Keith?” Lance mumbled, voice sort of froggy with tears.

“Yeah, Lance?”

“I don’t hate you… I was jealous of you, and I still kind of am, but I don’t hate you.”

Keith was silent, and somehow, that didn’t bother Lance at all.

“Keith?”

“Hmm…”

“If I asked you to stay in bed with me, would you?”

Keith didn’t really answer that either. But his arms tightened around Lance, and he felt Keith’s forehead rest against the back of his neck, so he figured he’d take that as a yes.

Lance closed his eyes, ready to sleep, even if, in some ways, he still didn’t quite feel tired.

But just as he was about to drift off, he heard himself mumble, “Please still be here when I wake up…”

And then he was out.

*

Keith didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do.

Lance had just told him he didn’t hate him. And he had asked Keith to stay in bed with him. And then again, asked for Keith to still be here once he woke up.

Keith’s life had done a near complete one eighty in the course of an hour.

And really, he wanted to go find Shiro and demand some answers. He wanted to wake up Lance and ask a million and one questions. He wanted to go be useful somewhere where he might actually be useful. Because right here? Right here, Keith wasn’t sure that he was supposed to do.

Here, he dealt with Lance. He dealt with Lance who needed help, who had an overdrive of feeling, who was going through cold turkey withdrawal from his medications that helped keep his mental disorders in check.

Keith wasn’t stupid. He knew what Prozac and Xanax did. And he knew what they were used for. He knew that the scientific name for Prozac was fluoxetine and for Xanax, it was alprazolam. He knew that Prozac is an SSRI, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. (And yes, he knew what that meant too.) But he also knew that Xanax was a benzodiazepine, meaning essentially that it was a sedative that relaxes your muscles and calms your mind.

Keith reacted the way he did in the medical bay because he wanted to hear it from someone else. He wanted to hear it from Lance.

Because… because it didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense that Lance had an anxiety disorder and depression. It didn’t make sense that he hadn’t told them sooner about his medication and that he was going to run out. It didn’t make sense that he would have some suicidal thought, act on it, regret it, and end up in the medical bay, with white gauze around his wrists, looking for all the world, like the complete opposite of Lance.

And Keith couldn’t help but think about how much he wanted to get angry. He wanted to get angry at the world and at whatever being was out there who put them in this situation. He wanted to to hate whoever or whatever started the cause of these issues in Lance. He wanted to be angry that Lance was jealous of him. He wanted to be angry that he didn’t have answers and that his life no longer made sense. Keith just wanted to be angry.

But he couldn’t.

He couldn’t be angry. Because when he looked at Lance, searched blue eyes that seemed a million shades darker than usual, all he felt was sad. He wanted to hold Lance and tell him all the great things he could do, and did on a regular basis. He wanted Lance to know how much he meant to all of them, and how much of Lance Keith sort of wished he could be. He wanted to cry because he had figured out at this point that there was something deep inside Lance that just hated himself. He wanted to crawl in between Lance’s ribs and live there forever, filling him with warmth and love and happiness so that he could drive out everything that surrounded the blue paladin in darkness.

But Keith knew he couldn’t do that, either.

So here he was, holding onto Lance almost like his life depended on it. Because there was something in his chest that felt puffy. There was something that felt soft and swollen, but in a good way. It felt fuzzy, and like the color red, full of passion, full of life, vibrant and yet raging. And it made him want to hold onto Lance for as close to forever as the taller teen would let him get.

And Keith just didn’t understand that.

*

Shiro checked in on them some time later.

Keith had only been vaguely aware that Shiro had come in. He hadn’t been asleep, but he was nearly there. He was far enough gone that he couldn’t really move, even if he wanted to, and when Shiro asked if either of them were awake, Keith just couldn’t find it in him to answer.

But he was aware that Shiro lingered for a moment or two, watching. He could feel the man’s presence, surveying them, watching as Lance breathed evenly and Keith’s head felt more and more lost and fuzzy the way it did when he slowly drifted into a nap.

Keith heard Shiro whisper to himself, “This is a nice change,” and Keith, in his impaired level of thinking, agreed with him. He almost remembered feeling a rumble in his throat that might have been a hum, or maybe just a little groan in his ninety three percent asleep state.

*

Keith jerked awake, a sudden, hard pound right in the base of his throat, by his collar bone.

It took him only a split second to realize what had woken him, and another to find its cause. His heart had literally just skipped a beat. Not the kind people talk about when their crush tells them they like them or something. Like literally skipping a beat. Like 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - - 2 - 3 - 4. As if everything just stopped for only a second.

But the next second, Keith couldn’t care less about how his chest felt tight and his breath was racing. Lance felt off.

He was still in bed, but his body had gone rigid. And suddenly his arms and legs were jerking in small movements and his head was rolling around on the pillow.

What was he supposed to do?! What was even happening? Why was Lance doing… this?!

Okay… no, maybe this was something to do with the medication. What were those symptoms Pidge listed? Headaches, trembling, panic attacks, seizures-

Keith’s eyes flew open.

Lance was having a seizure!

Alright, Keith remembered this. It was part of their training in the Garrison. If a crewmate is having seizure, you move them away from anything that could hurt them. Okay, well, Keith figured that the bed would be fine as long as Lance doesn’t roll off of it. Cushion head? On a pillow. Loosen tight clothing? None to speak of.

“Uhh… okay… when the convulsions stop… uh… turn him on his side,” Keith stuttered out to himself.

Why was he so jittery? He could do this! He knew what to do, he knew that Lance would be okay…

He hoped.

What else?

“Note the time the seizure started!” Keith scrambled to find the clock Pidge had programmed for him in his pocket.

5:27

“When did it start?” Keith breathed to himself. Maybe a minute ago? Less?

Another sudden thought occurred to Keith. Was Lance breathing?

A quick check and… no, he wasn’t. But… but that was okay? Because that happened sometimes with seizures, right? And… and it’s not safe to perform CPR on a guy who’s seizing!

Keith may scream.

He watched Lance with bated breath for another minute, the clock clicking past 5:29.

And then Lance stopped moving.

“Oh, god…” Keith mumbled to himself, feeling his heart rising in his throat. He nearly tossed the clock down onto the mattress, grabbing Lance’s right arm and pulling him towards Keith, onto his side.

Keith watched for what felt like forever before Lance’s eyes opened, blue eyes roaming around the room and settling on Keith’s face.

“Keith…” Lance groaned. He didn’t try to move, which Keith decided to take as a good thing, because then he wasn’t do anything to harm himself.

“Lance, how are you feeling?” Keith asked. He tried to be as gentle as possible. Last thing to do: talk to him and keep him calm until he is recovered.

“Tired…” Lance said. “How long was I asleep?”

Keith hesitated. Math… “Maybe three hours or so?”

Lance sort of nodded, wincing just a little as he did. “I’m sore…”

“Lance, do you know what just happened?” Keith asked hesitantly.

Lance looked at him weird. “No, what?”

Keith took a deep breath and let it out. “You just had a seizure…”

Lance nearly bolted upright. Nearly. Keith kept two steady hands on his arm and side.

“Shh, shh, it’s alright. It only last about two minutes or so. I woke up just as it started,” Keith soothed. Maybe he shouldn’t have told Lance that he just had a seizure, but then again, was he supposed to withhold that kind of information? Keith didn’t think he was.

“I just- I-I just…” Lance stuttered.

“You’re gonna be fine, alright? I promise you that. Pidge said that this was a symptom of Xanax withdrawal. It’s not random, it’s not out of the blue. We know what caused it, and we can keep an eye on it,” Keith said. One hand rubbed gently up and down the length of Lance’s arm. And before he could think better of it, Keith was whispering, “I’ll be here with you all the time. You’re not going to be alone. You’ll be okay.”

There was fear in Lance’s eyes, fear that Keith could not ignore. But the teen nodded and seemed to relax, letting Keith whisper to him more about nothing. He let Keith check his pulse every couple of minutes, being sure that his heartbeat was still strong, not wavering.

This lasted minutes or hours, Keith didn’t quite know. He knew he should probably call someone. He should tell Shiro or Coran or Allura or someone that Lance just had a seizure, but he wasn’t about to leave Lance alone and he also wasn’t about to haul him out of bed to go find one of them either. So there he stayed, smiling down soothingly at Lance as he calmed more and more, relaxing back into the mattress, never once pushing Keith away, physically or verbally.

They went quiet for a moment, then, “Keith?”

“Yeah?”

“Lay down.”

Keith did, laying on his side, head sharing a pillow with Lance. (Keith found it strange that Lance hadn’t hoarded a million pillows on his bed, because honestly, he had expected that to be the kind of thing Lance would do.)

“Okay,” Keith smiled.

“Close your eyes,” Lance said, an apprehensive look in his eyes. Keith humored him though, content to see where this led.

A second later, his eyes were closed and he could feel Lance shifting slightly on the bed. Then, a breath brushing across his face, and a brief press of lips against his.

Keith’s breath hitched, but he didn’t jerk away, he didn’t open his eyes, he didn’t say anything. He waited until he was sure that Lance had settled back in his spot again before he opened his eyes.

Deep indigo met blue, and Keith offered the smallest, gentlest smile he could. Because, yes, he was surprised. He was all kinds of surprised. But it hadn’t been unpleasant, and he couldn’t say that he hadn’t thought about kissing Lance a couple of times. So he smiled a little, and when Lance gave him a smile back, Keith’s grew a little bit.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I really hope you guys liked this! Just in case, if you saw anything in there that I missed, please let me know so that I can fix it! Also, because it is a big part of the story, if there is anything wrong with the way I portrayed Lance and his mental issues, as well as his withdrawal from his medication, please please please, say something! I want this to be accurate. And while I deal with some of the things that Lance is said to deal with in here, I do not take medication, so I do not know what that is like.
> 
> Anyway, since this could seem a little unfinished, specifically with how it was ended (because it's not really supposed to be and ending), let me know if you would like to see more from this! I put it into a series just in case I get a good reaction from this fic and enough people want more.
> 
> Also, last thing. Some of the things that characters think or say in here may seem wrong or off or inconsistent or any number of things like that. I want to use this as a disclaimer, it is supposed to seem like that! Not everyone has the same thoughts, not everyone has the same understanding of mental disorders. So, please don't persecute me for that.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and let me know what you think! :)


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